His eyes darken and his lips part when he sucks in a deep breath.
He steps out shortly after to make some calls. I don’t ask. I just curl up into the covers and pray that sleep takes me away from the harshness of reality.
Chapter 12—Maddox
One night. I spend one night between her thighs and suddenly my walls are crumbling down. Mentally, I’m frantically trying to repair their damage. Attempting to reinforce them against the tempting allure of her love. It would be so easy to fall at her feet and beg her for everything she’s ever offered me. I want to; God, I want to. But right now, what’s important is getting her the hell out of here and doing what I need to do to fix whatever is going on in her pretty head. I have no doubt that she is suffering greatly at his loss, but now, after hearing how she grew up, I fear that her issues might go deeper.
Regardless of what is going on around us, I feel unsettled with the hope that’s building within. The hope that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to let her in. I don’t know what to do with that feeling. I’ve spent so long refusing to believe in it that it’s terrifying.
I woke up before the sun and started making plans and getting the ball rolling. I rented us a place about an hour from home—a cabin that one of our contacts owns. He is going to be overseas for the next couple of months and needs someone to keep an eye on his place. In reality, I could have just as easily passed this job to someone more local to him, but this is just what Emmy needs. Somewhere neutral. Not back home, where our friends care too much to give her the time she needs, and damn sure not in this hellhole I found her in.
I take a moment after returning to our room to watch her sleep. She doesn’t look sad when she’s sleeping. I hate the part I’ve played in her sadness. This time away—together—will be good for us. If I really am going to forget everything that’s been integrated into my life since birth, then I need to make sure she can handle this baggage she is so willing to help me carry.
If there really is a future with us, then this is the time to find out.
Letting her sleep, I go about cleaning up the mess in the room and carry the few belongings we had with us down to my Charger before settling into the chair in the corner and watching my angel. I sit there in the shadows of the room and let myself feel, something I rarely do and never do when someone can see me. I let the future that could be us play out in my mind, feeling that flicker of hope grow a little larger when I can’t see anything but her love for me…and mine for her.
**
We’ve been on the road for a few hours now and she remains silent. I know she’s still fuming that I followed through with my promise that she wouldn’t be going back to Syn. We went by her hotel room, and as she stood pissed in the middle of the room, I packed her belongings into her suitcases. Five minutes later, we were back in the car and on our way to Georgia.
I keep my mouth shut. There really isn’t anything for me to gain by allowing her to pick a fight. She wants to feel like she’s in control of her life, and by me swooping in and taking over, she’s free-falling. It’s not that I’m trying to do that. I just want to make sure she’s where she belongs and not dancing for a room full of assholes while being at the hands of that motherfucker… Now that is not where she belongs.
One day, maybe she will see where I’m coming from, but if I have to get nothing but her anger in return for her safety, then I’m okay with that.
“Where are we going, Mad?” she whispers hoarsely.
“Not home, so stop worrying about it. We’re going to a cabin in Pine Hills. It’s sitting on fifty acres in the middle of nowhere. You need time, I get that, but you also need help getting over everything. So when you’re ready, we go home—but not until you’re ready.”
She’s quiet for so long that I look over at her. Her mouth is hanging slack, her eyes bugged out in shock.
“I need time? I need to get over everything? Well, isn’t that magnanimous of you, Maddox Locke.” She laughs, the sound hitting my ears and making me cringe. “Maybe while we’re there, we can find a mirror for you to look in and repeat that shit you just shoveled at my feet to yourself. Hello? Pot, meet kettle.”
“This isn’t about me, Emmy.”
“Oh, you stupid, stupid man. It’s always been about you.”
I don’t let her see it, but her words hit home. She couldn’t have delivered a more direct shot if she’d tried. Sure, she doesn’t know what she just did. She doesn’t know because you never let her in, you idiot. My mother’s words come back to me like a tsunami. The pain of always being her stupid little boy tries to take root, but I brush it aside. Emmy is nothing like my mother, and even as careless as her words are, she’s talking out her hurt right now.
“Emersyn,” I start. “Don’t let my desire to protect you be confused as stupidity. It has never been about me. I don’t keep myself from you because I think it’s some fun goddamn game.” I pause, needing a second to swallow the lump in my throat. I’m trying so hard to keep my heart from breaking free from my body. The emotions I’ve hidden for so long are rattling the cages, just waiting for that moment to pounce, and it terrifies me to think of what will be left of me if they get out. “I’ve been told my whole life that I was the worst kinds of evil. That my soul is as black as my eyes and that everything and everyone I touch will wilt at my hands. So, Emmy, this,” I stress, pointing between us, “THIS has never, not once, been about me.”
The rest of the ride is uncomfortable at best. I never intended to tell her that much. I struggle during every mile with what I could say to take that verbal vomit and shovel it back in. She knows more with just those few sentences than anyone else in my life.
And I’m terrified to think about what she must think of me now. The man she has loved unconditionally for years isn’t who she thinks he is. I’m sure she regrets every second of it now. I’m not sure what unsettles me more—the thought that she might regret giving her love or that she might be afraid of the truth of me.